The present invention relates to a group response analyzing system which may be applied to a group teaching system or may be used to analyze the different respones to a questionaire of the individuals in a specific group.
The group response analyzing system has been recently widely used in order to instantaneously analyze or process the different answers or responses from a large number of students or questionees to a specific question which is questioned to them simultaneously. The group response analyzing system generally comprises a central console for a teacher or questioner and a plurality of terminal response or student consoles for questionees or students. The central console may automatically collect the answers or responses from the terminal consoles and may analyze or process them and display the result of the analysis or processing, and the terminal console has a plurality of response or answer buttons so that a questionee or student may select one of them according to his judgement and a pair of indicating lamps for indicating whether the student selected the correct answer or not. The question may be transmitted directly from the central console to the terminal consoles or may be given from peripheral or auxiliary equipment such as a teaching machine connected to each terminal console. The answer or response from the terminal console is transmitted to the central console through an intercommunication channel. In addition to the analysis or processing of the answers or responses, the central console may transmit the correct and wrong signals to the terminal consoles for turning on the correct or wrong indicating lamp on each terminal console so that a student may know the result of his answer.
The conventional group response analyzing system includes a plurality of intercommunication lines between the central console and the terminal consoles such as communication lines for establishing the intercommunication between the questioner or teacher and the questionees or students, response or answer lines for transmitting the response or answer signals from the terminal consoles to the central console, lines for transmitting the signals to the terminal consoles for turning on a correct or wrong indicating lamp and the like. Therefore the number of lines interconnecting the central and terminal consoles is increased. Furthermore the central console has a simple display device such as a meter or a pen recorder for displaying for example the correct-answer ratio, that is the ratio of the number of students who selected the correct answer to the whole number of students so that the display device is not satisfactory in intelligibility, response and versatility.
One of the objects of the present invention is therefore to provide a group response analyzing system which may overcome the above and other problems encountered in the conventional system.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a group response analyzing system in which a number of intercommunication lines between the central console and the terminal consoles may be minimized.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a group response analyzing system in which the central console may accomplish a variety of versatile functions.
Briefly stated, the group response analyzing system in accordance with the present invention generally comprises a central console for a questioner or teacher and a plurality of terminal response consoles for questionees or students interconnected with the central console through a communication channel consisting of scanning lines and information lines. The terminal response consoles are sequentially selected by the time-division scanning system, and various informations may be exchanged between the central and terminal console when the latter is selected. In addition to the functions of transmitting and receiving various informations to and from the terminal response consoles, the central console may analyze or process the received responses or answers and display the results of the analyzes or processing by analog and/or digital display devices.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description of one preferred embodiment thereof taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing.